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reviewer1909311 - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr Systems Engineer at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Had a major impact on our RTOs and the near-synchronous replication is exceptional
Pros and Cons
  • "Zerto's two main features are ease of management and that the product just works. It does what they say it'll do."
  • "I don't feel like we're a big enough customer to warrant being called every week or every month but it would be good to get a little bit more contact with a salesperson or engineer group."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use cases are for disaster recovery replication side to side. 

We were running VMware Site Recovery Manager and it ran well. It was a great solution compared to what we had before. We didn't have disaster recovery issues. We were just doing our test. It ran superbly. Zerto improved the amount of time it took to failover and address any issues. We went from failing over in about three or four hours during the test to it taking one hour. It was very fast.

It's in a single department in a single company. Luckily, we don't really have to support much of our field force. We have approximately 4,000 agents who are in eleven states, but we don't have to go out into the states. We're on in one building and it's one business unit. We manage the failovers but it's just one group management.

Approximately four users use the solution.

What is most valuable?

One of the most valuable features is the ease of management. It's very easy to manage. My team grew and a team member took over my role for Zerto support. He was able to pick the ball up and run with it. It was very easy for him to pick it up and go forward. I haven't had to do a lot of management of the product. 

Our RTO is between four to ten seconds to our site, which is about a hundred and fifty miles north of my location. We bought dedicated lines and we've been very happy with Zerto's performance. 

Zerto's two main features are ease of management and that the product just works. It does what they say it'll do.

The near-synchronous replication Zerto offers is exceptional. Our pipe is 10 GB and we haven't overloaded that connection. We are very satisfied with it.

During our test last year, we moved systems around for users to test with. We had some misconfigurations in the journal sizes, they just weren't big enough. There was logging left on some SQL servers. Our DR test lasted for three days. We had a dedicated group come in and test. We failed back to production and then put it in the test phase again. We did it all within thirty minutes, and it worked very quickly. We were very satisfied.

Zerto has had a major impact on our RTOs. We've been feeling the impact for a while. It's steady here. It's exceptional. SRM dwarfed as far as our targets for RTOs. 

Zerto has reduced our DR testing. It reduced the amount of time we have to test because it's so easy to failover. We've been very pleased with that. It's even given us the option of where we might be able to test more often anytime. We would like to get to a place where we test it once a month where we would allow some business units to test, and then do another business unit the next month.

It used to take us a week for the failover process and testing. The testing has been majorly reduced to where it now takes a day. It took a day to failover, to get everything lined up and running, and it never worked. We never were able to officially have a successful DR test. SRM fixed that and then Zerto took it to the next level. It improved drastically. This has freed up staff to work on other tasks. It used to be that we needed a room full of people for the test where we now need two. 

What needs improvement?

I don't feel like we're a big enough customer to warrant being called every week or every month but it would be good to get a little bit more contact with a salesperson or engineer group. Our account executive is very good. He's done a great job, but it was hard for him to tie down an engineer. It was a little bit of a strain to get somebody lined up to show us what version 10 was about. Once we got it, it was perfect. It would be nice if it could be easier to do that. 

They have VPGs and VRAs. The management of that when trying to do a VMware upgrade can get a little finicky. You have to bring nodes or hosts up and down where the VRAs are running on the hosts. Sometimes the VRAs won't come back up or they may not respond. So when you're done doing your work, it could be that you have fifteen servers that are not replicating. So you'll have to stop, delete, manually remove what you need to do, recreate the VRA, and that's easy enough but you have to go through and do that, and then resync. That's part of IT. They are a little finicky. 

Version 9.7 has been a little easier to work with, and it integrates with VMware a lot easier. It shuts down the VRAs. The VRAs are finicky about how they get shut down. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for six years.

Buyer's Guide
Zerto
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,369 professionals have used our research since 2012.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We've been very satisfied with the stability of it. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

Support has been pretty good and responsive. I would rate them a nine out of ten. They're good. 

Sometimes getting in touch with somebody is hard. We're not that big of a customer though. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

It's been easy for new users to pick up and it was pretty easy for multiple people to work within the UI.

How was the initial setup?

I was indirectly involved with the setup. It didn't take very long, it was like doing an upgrade. 

You just build the servers and the proxy up, install the VRA, and then one by one had them sync.

Seven months ago we had to do a complete resync which took about four to five days. It was straightforward. There is a lot of documentation on Zerto's support site. My advice would be to get the documentation off their site. Open a ticket for support at the same time. 

What was our ROI?

We have seen ROI in terms of resources and time. For our overall management of the system, it doesn't require too many resources. The upgrades are not too bad. You may have to dedicate a staff member to do it for a couple of days. I didn't have a lot of experience with it and the two upgrades I did were simple.

In terms of time, it has saved us north of 30%. It cut down on a lot of manpower. There has been a reduction in our management pattern from other prior solutions.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

You pay to play and it's not cheap but it's worth it. 

What other advice do I have?

We know we have the capabilities to do disaster recovery in the Cloud rather than in a physical data center. We're replicating about 150 miles north of us. That's probably going to happen in the next five to ten years for us. We're making a pivot to where we know we're going to have to go that way with some of the cloud solutions.

We have not had to use it for data recovery due to ransomware. We have gone through the industrial hardening of our environment. We have been rated as very mature as far as our security stands. We have actually had some counterparts that experienced some issues and they didn't have anything in place, and it was very bad for them. Luckily, we have not had to use it in that capacity. We feel really good about its capability from the testing we've done. We know we can use it for malicious attack response.

We have tested it to help protect VMs in our environment and we have found that it will work for that. We got decent results with testing and I was very impressed.

In terms of it reducing our overall backup and disaster recovery management, it hasn't. We needed two staff members for the last two solutions we used. This year we will need three because I will also be involved with Zerto.

Zerto has replaced our DR and replication legacy solution. We're using Veeam for our backups but Zerto has replaced everything replication-wise. It saved costs to manage them by 20%.

My advice would be to do a POC for its concept and everything you get. Get it. Do it. It's a good product. I have friends that work with other companies that provide similar services and one of their engineers told me that you can't beat Zerto. 

I would rate them an eight out of ten. 

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Server Administrator at a construction company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 10
Performs fast disaster recovery, is easy to configure and manage
Pros and Cons
  • "The ability to quickly bring up VMs within a test environment allows us to test our disaster recovery functions and ensures that they would function just as well in an actual disaster scenario."
  • "Zerto needs to improve its support for VMware Lifecycle Manager."

What is our primary use case?

We currently utilize Zerto as our disaster recovery solution. With Zerto, we replicate production virtual machines to our DR site. This approach enables us to recover and bring everything back online in a disaster swiftly. Our recovery point objective can be as low as five seconds, depending on the replication point.

Additionally, we employ Zerto for scaling purposes and for conducting upgrade testing. This entails spinning up VMs in an isolated environment, allowing us to perform various tests. For example, a few years ago, we tested the upgrade of our active directory domain controllers. By validating processes within this environment, we can ensure their smooth execution in production. These are the two primary use cases for Zerto in our organization.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto is very user-friendly. We can select the VMs by installing a small agent specifically designed for the host. This agent identifies all the VMs. Zerto integrates smoothly with VMware, which is our primary core platform. I believe it also functions well with other hypervisors, although I am only familiar with VMware. Therefore, the integration with vSphere simplifies the process of creating groups, runbooks, and other components necessary for building our disaster recovery environment.

Zerto's near-synchronous replication performs admirably. Many times when I check, we are only about five seconds behind in terms of production time. Of course, this does depend on network performance. There have been instances where the delay exceeded five seconds due to network blips or other issues. However, for the most part, we consistently remain within a five-second range of our production environment.

As a manufacturer, a significant portion of our operations relies on timely execution in order to ensure efficient production and timely delivery of our products. We closely coordinate with external partners and customers to minimize downtime and maintain a seamless real-time production process, which is crucial for us.

The ability to conduct faster disaster recovery testing and the potential for quicker recovery in the event of a disaster have been greatly improved. Before using Zerto, our approach involved log shipping and manual recovery, which meant that the best we could do was recover the previous backup from the previous night, assuming the backup was successful. This process would take hours or even days. However, with Zerto's automation, we can now recover within seconds—five, ten, or twenty seconds from the point of the outage. We can bring systems back online automatically and at a significantly faster pace than our previous manual approach allowed.

Zerto has significantly improved our recovery time objectives compared to what they used to be. Previously, we would have to restore from backups from the previous night and manually configure systems. Therefore, the recovery time objective has likely decreased from days to approximately an hour, or perhaps even less. It's challenging to determine the precise timeframe in a real disaster scenario since we conduct disaster recovery testing. However, it is undoubtedly much better than it was before, although pinpointing the exact time of an actual disaster is somewhat different.

Zerto has helped us reduce our organization's disaster recovery testing from several days of preparation to just a single day.

What is most valuable?

Zerto is easy to configure and manage. The ability to quickly bring up VMs within a test environment allows us to test our disaster recovery functions and ensures that they would function just as well in an actual disaster scenario. This enables us to swiftly recover in the event of a disaster.

What needs improvement?

Zerto could be easier to configure when we need to perform data testing and establish network connectivity outside of the isolated environment. We encounter situations where there is a desire to test a printer during disaster recovery testing. However, due to the presence of an isolated environment, doing so can result in complex configurations. 

Zerto needs to improve its support for VMware Lifecycle Manager. This creates a problem with VMware's ability to automate the complete VMware stack upgrade.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for ten years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Zerto is highly stable. It is rare to encounter any issues with it. Typically, any problems that arise are due to changes made on our end that may have inadvertently affected it. However, Zerto remains an exceptionally stable product.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

To the best of my knowledge, Zerto can scale to the extent that we require. I am not aware of any limitations, as we have not encountered any thus far.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is generally very prompt in responding, and highly knowledgeable, and they will continue working with us until the problem is resolved.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used Dell RecoverPoint for Virtual Machines and completely replaced it with Zerto.

Zerto is much easier to use compared to RecoverPoint. Previously, with RecoverPoint, we could only program-specific logs, and the VMs we wanted to replicate had to remain on those logs. If we moved the data off those logs, replication would be lost. However, Zerto keeps track of the VM regardless of its location, making it superior to RecoverPoint in terms of configuration and management.

Zerto is a more cost-effective product than Dell RecoverPoint.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. We need a virtual machine, install it, push it through, and configure it to communicate with the host for deployment. I mean, it's a very straightforward process. Two people were involved in the deployment.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house.

What was our ROI?

The human resources necessary to perform a disaster recovery test are undoubtedly available. It is more economical than RecoverPoint. Now, it has been many years, and I am uncertain about the cost disparity. However, on the whole, there is a decrease in various aspects regarding the product's cost and the number of work hours needed for disaster recovery testing which is a clear return on investment.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is straightforward. We are on an enterprise licensing model, and it is based on a per-VM basis. We have the option to purchase them in blocks. This approach is quite cost-effective as we do not replicate our development and testing environments. We only replicate the production environment. Therefore, we are not paying for the entire setup, but only for what we are actually replicating.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Zerto a ten out of ten.

Currently, we have a separate product that we use for backup, which has immutability features. However, we do not currently employ Zerto for immutability purposes.

We have considered using the cloud for disaster recovery, but currently, we maintain the same hardware at both locations. However, since we conduct all of our firmware testing and upgrades on our disaster recovery site first, we have decided to keep our own disaster recovery site instead of attempting to do it in the cloud.

We could easily transfer data to the disaster recovery system. One of Zerto's functions is to replicate data from virtual machines or migrate entire virtual machines, although we haven't utilized it for that purpose.

The only maintenance required is typically software updates. Whenever a new version is released, we must go through the process of upgrading Zerto. Other than that, unless there are any issues, it generally operates smoothly.

We just need to ensure that we know the number of virtual machines we would be replicating so that we can obtain the correct licensing. Otherwise, we will have to backtrack. If we underestimate, we will need to provide additional licensing. It is important to determine this information upfront, as well as the bandwidth between our site and the replication location, as it also affects our recovery objectives.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Zerto
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Zerto. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
831,369 professionals have used our research since 2012.
D. Ngunyen - PeerSpot reviewer
Cloud Architect at State of California
Real User
Helps reduce downtime and has a simple user interface
Pros and Cons
  • "When we use our VMware environment, sometimes the HP hardware is not compatible, and we start to lose data. I like that we can restore our whole application and public-facing system through Zerto."
  • "Zerto can improve the dashboard by making it even more simple. Right now, there's a lot on the dashboard, and it can be overwhelming. If you're an experienced user, then you'll find it easy to use, but if you're a beginner, it will take you some time."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily use Zerto for disaster recovery and backups.

What is most valuable?

When we use our VMware environment, sometimes the HP hardware is not compatible, and we start to lose data. I like that we can restore our whole application and public-facing system through Zerto.

It's the easiest way to do disaster recovery. It's less complicated than VMware.

Compared to the ease of use of other DR or backup solutions, Zerto's dashboard is the easiest. The user interface is much simpler, and maybe, that's what makes it easier.

Zerto helped reduce downtime when our data is corrupted. We're able to restore it relatively fast. There may be downtime of about half an hour for us, but the users don't see it; it's transparent.

The speed of recovery with Zerto versus the speed of recovery with other DR solutions is about the same.

Zerto reduced the number of staff involved in DR situations. We went from ten people to two for the whole organization.

It also reduced our organization's DR testing by about 30%. We've actually been able to move a lot of our resources (people) to AWS Innovation.

What needs improvement?

Zerto can improve the dashboard by making it even more simple. Right now, there's a lot on the dashboard, and it can be overwhelming. If you're an experienced user, then you'll find it easy to use, but if you're a beginner, it will take you some time.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using it for seven years now.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Zertos' stability is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's very easy to scale, but the only problem is that there are additional costs associated with it. 

How are customer service and support?

Zerto's technical support is excellent. When you open a ticket, they get back to you right away. If you mark it as a priority, then you have instantaneous access to support. I would give technical support a nine out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have VMware products and tried to implement VMware Site Recovery Manager. However, it was just a little too difficult for our environment.

How was the initial setup?

At first, the initial deployment was complex, but now it's relatively easy. For someone experienced, it is not a problem.

We have five data centers, and we started with one and deployed it in phases. Because there are lots of firewalls and access, we picked one data center and then built the next one.

What about the implementation team?

We implemented it ourselves, and it took about a year to deploy it across the whole system.

What was our ROI?

For a long time, we needed disaster recovery that was more than IBM's, which is in Colorado. We needed something on-premises that was instantaneous. That's what Zerto offers, and that's the ROI we have with Zerto.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The last time I looked at pricing, it was very good. It's much cheaper than VMware by far.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at VMware Site Recovery Manager and IBM, but they didn't work well.

What other advice do I have?

The best way to look at it is from an ease-of-use standpoint because when you look at VMware's version, it's a little bit more complex even though it is native to where we use it. That's why we went with Zerto.

Considering what we use Zerto for, I'd give it a ten out of ten because it is our primary solution.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer1952691 - PeerSpot reviewer
Virtualization Administrator at a financial services firm with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
We perform more DR testing now because it is so easy
Pros and Cons
  • "The test features have been really good for us. Our DR testing goes very quickly and easily now for all our stuff with Zerto. We have our priority recovery process, where we cover our databases for our app servers and web servers. All our teams pretty much get their VMs very quickly. The RPOs are very low."
  • "I don't like the evacuation process. The host evacuation process could be a little simpler too. It takes our maintenance a bit longer, when we are doing host maintenance, because we still need to evacuate the vRAs manually. I know they tried to make it more automatic, but it is not quite there yet."

What is our primary use case?

We mostly use it for disaster recovery purposes. We do a lot of migrations as well, e.g., VM from one site to another. We use Zerto for that, as we have hundreds of VMs that we protect as our main DR position using Zerto.

In general, our DR position is entirely based around Zerto. We use it for everything. We just have a couple things that we don't put on it. There are a couple of Oracle things that we replicate with different methods, but we pretty much do everything related to DR with Zerto.

We are not using it for backup. We are using it for continuous DR and replication between two on-prem sites. 

We have two data center sites with bidirectional replications. Each site protects the other site and we have our VPGs that go back and forth.

How has it helped my organization?

We perform more DR testing now because it is so easy. For example, what we are doing right now is baselines on our recovery time objectives, determining, "Okay, if we recover one VM, it takes this long. If we recover another VM this size, it is this long." Then, we recover 10, 100, and 800. That way, we get kind of a forecast, when we add VMs, about how that will affect our DR stance.

When we need to move a VM from one data center to another, it is replicated there. We don't need to do any snapshots of storage. We just make a VPG for it, do a move action, and it is just there. It works really well.

What is most valuable?

The test features have been really good for us. Our DR testing goes very quickly and easily now for all our stuff with Zerto. We have our priority recovery process, where we cover our databases for our app servers and web servers. All our teams pretty much get their VMs very quickly. The RPOs are very low. 

It is very easy to use. There are a lot of training materials online on the Zerto portal, which make it very simple to learn and use. You could go from not knowing how to use it to fully understanding all of it in a day. This can be done by using the Zerto University, getting your little certification and making your boss happy. It is pretty easy to set up VPG-wise.

You have a 24-hour journal. The amount of disasters and things that you can recover from using a 24-hour journal is huge, e.g., ransomware. We haven't had to do that yet, but the possibility is there. It is good to know that you can go back as far as you need.

What needs improvement?

I would like to see the app be more like the analytics site. Right now, when you go into the analytics, you need to zoom in real tight on your browser. You get a lot more from the analytics site than you do from the app. If they made those two more similar, it would be really useful for day-to-day monitoring of your stuff.

I don't like the evacuation process. The host evacuation process could be a little simpler too. It takes our maintenance a bit longer, when we are doing host maintenance, because we still need to evacuate the vRAs manually. I know they tried to make it more automatic, but it is not quite there yet.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using it for at least three years in my job function.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

We have had no problems with it. Stability-wise, I can only say positive things because we haven't had any real negatives with it.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is very scalable. If you add a data center, then you just add a ZVM at that data center, link it up, and add your vRAs. After that, you are ready to start making VPGs. It is very simple to set up.

We don't have issues with scaling. If a vRA is getting a bit overloaded, it makes little vRAs. So, it kind of handles itself. We have our vRAs at the maximum size, as far as CPU and memory, that they can be. Our RPOs are really short, so we are doing pretty well for our size.

How are customer service and support?

Zerto's support is always responsive. I have never had any problems with it. Our lead Zerto engineer does a lot more stuff than I do as far as with support. Typically, I will escalate to her. If there is an issue, then I defer to her. However, as far as my experience with support, I have experienced nothing but good things. The learning portal, myZerto portal, and analytics are very good. I don't have to use support very often, which is a good thing.

If I were to rate it, I would probably rate it as 10 out of 10. Every time that I have needed them, they have been responsive and quick. I haven't used them that much, but when I have, they have been very responsive.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We have used SRM, who is Zerto's main competitor. 

SRM was pretty quick. However, the speed of recovery with Zerto is so simple. It can failover, e.g., do whatever kind of failover you want it to do. You choose your VPGs, then you are off. It is really fast and simple. A lot of people could handle using it pretty easily.

How was the initial setup?

I haven't found it to be hard. When you add a new host, you just go to set up and add a new host, then it builds a vRA. It is pretty easy to manage alerts. It will tell you exactly what is wrong, e.g., this doesn't have enough scratch disk, so you need to go update that. Or, this host is offline, e.g., you forgot to evacuate it, so then you need to take it out of Zerto. So, it will alert you to that stuff.

What about the implementation team?

I have done my share of deploying vRAs. Though, our lead Zerto engineer handled most of that stuff from the initial setup.

What was our ROI?

We have definitely seen a return on investment. We can move any of our VMs from either of our data centers back and forth very easily, bringing them back and doing tests as frequently as we want. We will be doing two tests next week. At previous companies, we did one test a year. Now, we are doing different stacks, e.g., if we do 20, 100, or 700 VMS, then it will be this long. So, we can forecast additional workload and how much that will affect our DR position.

Zerto is definitely a lot easier to manage. My whole team knows how to use it, since it is very simple to use and intuitive. There are a couple people who use it and I am the secondary person. We have someone who basically lives in Zerto. She adds stuff on a daily basis and we are always on top of our updates. We are always looking at whatever new features come out. We try to maximize our journals. We are up to 24 hours on a lot of them. Our average RPO is eight seconds, and that is pretty good since we have 1,500 VMs and 280-plus VPGs. We have a pretty big on-prem environment. So, the good thing about it is the frequency and ease of testing because Zerto is very simple to use. DR has enough problems to deal with and Zerto makes things a lot easier.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We have looked at Veeam and SRM. We examined the marketplace, Gartner, etc. This product that management chose, and we are pretty happy with it.

What other advice do I have?

Give it a try. Move some VMs back and forth to see how easy it is to use. The one-to-many is pretty good. We have two sites, so it is not a very big deal for us to do that, but it is very useful. 

I would rate Zerto as 10 out of 10. I love Zerto's CDP solution. It is really easy to use. It does everything that we need it to do and scales easily.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Daniel Modrušan - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Vice President & Principal Systems Engineer at Bangor Savings Bank
Real User
Took our disaster recovery practice from sixteen hours down to thirty minutes
Pros and Cons
  • "I love Zerto's near-synchronous replication. I've been using Zerto for three years at my current employer and many years before that. It's been great. Anywhere I've used it, it's made the failover process a lot easier so that pretty much anybody can do it. This feature is our number one priority because we can keep our critical apps running if we have a failure, or even if we have a misconfiguration, it's very easy to recover something quickly."
  • "I would like for them to support additional hypervisor options. They support VMware but if they supported Hyper-V or Nutanix, it would be beneficial."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use cases are for disaster recovery, data center movement, long-term recovery, and backup recovery.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto took our disaster recovery practice from sixteen hours down to thirty minutes. 

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is the fully automated failover. The orchestration made the failover very easy for anyone who wasn't necessarily technically knowledgeable to be able to failover a machine.

I love Zerto's near-synchronous replication. I've been using Zerto for three years at my current employer and many years before that. It's been great. Anywhere I've used it, it's made the failover process a lot easier so that pretty much anybody can do it. This feature is our number one priority because we can keep our critical apps running if we have a failure, or even if we have a misconfiguration, it's very easy to recover something quickly.

We've moved some of our workloads to the cloud and back from the cloud using Zerto. The native tools provided by the cloud provider were not as seamless. Having DR in the cloud is very important to us because we trust that the cloud provider will provide a solution, but we also want to make sure that for our business purposes, we have a backup to disaster recoveries so that we're able to recover somewhere else if necessary.

We use Zerto to support DR on the AWS platform. We go between two different clouds. We go from VMware to Azure and also AWS.

Zerto made this quite seamless, especially going between two different clouds. It's just a matter of a couple of clicks. You don't need to understand what's happening on the back end.

We use Zerto to help protect VMs in our environment. It took our RPO from around four hours and now it could be seconds. We can recover the machine in under a minute as far as the boot time. We're between five and ten seconds RPO.

The magnitude of Zerto is much faster. We used to do a disaster recovery failover of our critical systems. It took about sixteen hours and once we had implemented Zerto, it took around thirty minutes to do for the same exact systems.

What needs improvement?

I would like for them to support additional hypervisor options. They support VMware but if they supported Hyper-V or Nutanix, it would be beneficial.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Zerto for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's been great. We've had it for three years. The only time we reboot the machines is for normal patches. We don't have to do anything else. It just works. We don't have to think about it. We've never had any issues over the three years we've been running.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We started Zerto with a small footprint. We only did a few VMs as a POC with two nodes on each side. Then we've grown it to 34 nodes on each side, including the cloud. It's always the same amount of resources. We're running 150 protected VMs in there. It runs really well. 

How are customer service and support?

The few times we've had to use customer service, it's never been for anything that was really broken. It's more informational or because we didn't understand how the product works. They've been great with communication, they get back to us, and even if they don't get an answer right away in one day, they'll let us know with the ticket updates that they're still working on it. 

It's been really good as far as the little interaction we've had. The one nice thing is that we've never had to use it for anything that's been broken or that it's not working.

They have great communication. They don't just send you links to KB articles. 

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We looked at other solutions before we purchased Zerto. We did a bake-off with a couple of other solutions. Zerto blew everything else away. The functionality is the same as everybody else, but the amount of time it takes to implement Zerto is a lot quicker. 

Making changes if you want to add another machine or another workload takes virtually seconds, whereas we found other systems took a planning time and could take hours to get implemented correctly.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was great. We had one of our newest engineers run through it because as part of the POC, the salesperson showed us how to install it. It was very straightforward. We took somebody who knew nothing about Zerto, had them install it and they had it installed and running in about fifteen minutes. It is quite easy to use. 

I can't say it's the same for SRM. There's a lot of documentation, whereas, with Zerto you point to the button, you push, and it works. 

What about the implementation team?

We did the full installation ourselves.

What was our ROI?

We got the recovery time from sixteen hours to thirty minutes. Prior, when it took sixteen hours, there would be about ten or more people who were waiting for systems to come online to be able to test. 

With Zerto, within an hour, we get the systems up, and then it's thirty minutes to test. Everybody can go home. There's a lot less time for people to be available. Zerto makes it much easier and quicker to get completed.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The licensing model per VM is great. It's a good way to license it because you want to protect only the devices that you're looking to protect. As far as getting the licensing and working with the sales team, they're very responsive. There's a lot of great communication, it's good all around.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at VMware SRM. We also looked at a manual process. We chose Zerto for the simplicity and the cost ratio was phenomenal. It's easy enough that we've had nontechnical people able to failover just by clicking a button. 

For Zerto, you add the VM in the VPG or workload, point it to the target, pick where you want it to land, hit go, and it's done. With SRM, in comparison, you'd have to make sure it's being replicated between the two SANs. You have to go to a different UI, configure all of it, make sure that's working, then go into SRM and configure all the orchestration parts. It takes a lot more planning. You really have to make sure that all the different systems work together, whereas Zerto takes care of all that for you.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Zerto a nine out of ten, there is some room for improvement. The drawback for me is that it's not compatible with every single hypervisor. If we wanted to go with another vendor for a hypervisor locally, then we'd have to look for a different solution, and there's nothing really out there that is comparable to what Zerto can do.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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reviewer2506566 - PeerSpot reviewer
Senior Server Engineer at a healthcare company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Real User
Provides continuous data protection with live test failover and has an easy setup
Pros and Cons
  • "With Zerto CDP, we can pull to our recovery objective in six seconds."
  • "The live test failover is the most valuable feature because it allows me to validate that my data is protected in the event of a failure."
  • "It's pretty expensive per server."

What is our primary use case?

We use it for continuous data protection on our mission-critical clinical systems. I work for a hospital. We use it to prevent ransomware, malware, or basic recovery for things like our patient data and imaging system. At one point, we used to do recovery once a day. With Zerto, our recovery objective right now is in six seconds.

How has it helped my organization?

We had a database failure one night at around 11 o'clock, and it had probably been about 23 hours since it had a hard backup. With Zerto, we brought it up in my DR site within ten minutes, and it controlled all of the hospital's registration features. Without that system, we can't even ingest patients into our system. So we brought up that database within ten minutes, got it back in line, and continued operations.

What is most valuable?

The live test failover is the most valuable feature because it allows me to validate that my data is protected in the event of a failure.

The near-synchronous replication Zerto provides is awesome. This feature is very important, especially because in today's age of ransomware and everything is so data-centric in a hospital, I need to be able to identify the point in time of infection and recover to the most up-to-date available point in time that I can without having to lose patient data. At one point, we used to do a 24-hour recovery. but in today's day and age, you can't lose a day's worth of data.

We use Zerto to protect our VMs in our environment. It improved our RPOs because before we had 24-hour RPO, and now I'm within ten minutes. 

Zerto's speed of recovery is fast compared to other solutions. We use Zerto and Veeam. Zerto already has the disks, which must be signed into and presented. There's a lot of rescanning involved, but Azure builds the VM, attaches the disks, and powers it up. We're leveraging RTO in under ten minutes.

What needs improvement?

The price could be improved. It's pretty expensive per server, but in the long run, it's well worth the level of protection it provides.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto since 2023.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is excellent.

How are customer service and support?

Support is very good.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We used Veeam, which didn't offer any CDP. We use Zerto primarily for continuous protection.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was easy. We had a professional services engagement when we bought our first pack of licenses. They came in and worked with us. We had monthly and weekly meetings for three months to set up everything.

What other advice do I have?

We do not use disaster recovery in the cloud. We have an actual on-prem DR site. We have a multisite Zerto environment that I can bring up in multiple locations, but we do primarily on-prem recovery.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten for its ease of use, functionality, and multi-tenant support with ransomware detection.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Andrew Watts - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Ivrnet Inc.
Real User
Enabled us to save tremendous amounts of time, is user-friendly, and provides peace of mind
Pros and Cons
  • "Using Zerto for the migration was incredibly valuable, enabling us to save tremendous amounts of time."
  • "Not all of the knowledge required for implementing Zerto is available in their online documentation for non-partners."

What is our primary use case?

We utilized Zerto to facilitate the migration of servers within a data center from one location to another and employed it for disaster recovery purposes.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto is user-friendly. The feedback I received from my team during the migration was that it was effortless to use. I wasn't directly involved in the implementation, but I participated in the decision-making process for purchasing and analyzing Zerto. However, the feedback I received from our team indicated that it was quite straightforward to use.

The benefit to our company was the ease of moving our servers using Zerto, which saved us a lot of time. I would like to emphasize that during the data center migration, it saved us a significant amount of time. Additionally, during the disaster recovery tests, when we actually used it, it worked exceptionally well. Zerto provides us with peace of mind. In the event of an incident, the ability to recover our data effectively also grants us peace of mind.

We utilized Zerto to transition from one cloud to another, ensuring that all of our operations and applications are now in the cloud. Having disaster recovery in the cloud is an important necessity for business continuity.

We use Zerto to help protect our virtual machines.

Zerto has helped reduce our disaster recovery testing.

With Zerto, we would not require additional staff or hire a third party to assist with disaster recovery.

What is most valuable?

Using Zerto for the migration was incredibly valuable, enabling us to save tremendous amounts of time. Thankfully, we have never had to utilize the disaster recovery feature. However, if the need arose, Zerto would be instrumental in preserving our business.

What needs improvement?

Not all of the knowledge required for implementing Zerto is available in their online documentation for non-partners.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Zerto for two years.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability is really good. We deployed it fairly quickly across our environment.

How are customer service and support?

The technical support is responsive and helpful.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

How was the initial setup?

The feedback I received from our team was that the majority of the deployment went smoothly, but there were some technical aspects that were not covered in the deployment documentation, which they had to figure out.

The deployment required two people at times, but the majority of it was completed by one person.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house.

What was our ROI?

Zerto has saved time during our data center migration, and we are utilizing it for our disaster recovery. However, we have not yet calculated the return on investment for it.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Zerto previously had a perplexing licensing structure, but they have since resolved it by implementing a unified license.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We evaluated Veeam Backup and Replication before choosing Zerto. Zerto offers live recording, allowing us to rewind to the exact moment when the incident occurred. At the time of our selection, Zerto was the only company with this capability.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Zerto a nine out of ten.

For organizations planning to implement Zerto in-house, I recommend reviewing all the setup documentation beforehand.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud
Disclosure: PeerSpot contacted the reviewer to collect the review and to validate authenticity. The reviewer was referred by the vendor, but the review is not subject to editing or approval by the vendor.
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Team Lead / Virtualization SME at a retailer with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Top 20
Offers synchronous replication, point-in-time restore, brick-level restore, and file-level restore features
Pros and Cons
  • "Zerto is low maintenance, so I can set it and forget it. It has a great process and an excellent solution."
  • "It would be advantageous if Zerto had plugins for Infoblox, Cisco, or load balancers, as this would enable us to better manage those records."

What is our primary use case?

We mostly use Zerto to replicate applications and database servers between our primary data center and our disaster recovery site. We have a number of business applications, Oracle servers, and three sites that we replicate to our DR site, and Zerto works well.

We deployed Zerto on private cloud and on-prem.

How has it helped my organization?

Zerto is low maintenance, so I can set it and forget it. It has a great process and an excellent solution.

We use Zerto to protect our virtual machines and virtual database servers.

Zerto has reduced the staff involved in the data recovery situation because we don't need to involve the backup team. We only require a couple of people to do a failover.

As our backup is managed by a separate team, we can use Disaster Recovery without involving the virtualization team. We do not need to involve the storage or backup teams, as Zerto takes care of all that. Therefore, only one or two people are needed for overall backup and management.

What is most valuable?

I appreciate Zerto's near synchronous replication, point-in-time restore, brick-level restore, and file-level restore features. We haven't had to use the feature in a real disaster recovery scenario yet, but we tested it thoroughly. The only manual part was changing the DNS from the production IP to the DR IP. Everything else worked perfectly. 

Zerto is user-friendly.

What needs improvement?

It would be beneficial if we could gain insight into DNS record reporting from the DR side, however, this is not a realistic expectation due to the fact that different companies use different hardware and different methods of DNS management. It would be advantageous if Zerto had plugins for Infoblox, Cisco, or load balancers, as this would enable us to better manage those records. Unfortunately, this is not a realistic expectation as these products are usually managed by the middleware or a network team, which has no relation to their application.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using the solution for around three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Zerto is stable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Zerto is certainly scalable and easy to deploy. We do not use as many licenses as they have available, but we are in the process of rolling Zerto out to all business users and applications.

How are customer service and support?

Zerto's technical support is great.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We previously used SAN replication and storage replication. We also used some products from Veritas, but now we use Zerto, which is easier to set up. Zerto is great.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. I had no prior knowledge of Zerto when we first deployed the solution, so I had a few conversations with engineers, but other than that, it was relatively easy to learn and I was able to understand the whole process. The deployment took less than two weeks to complete.

What about the implementation team?

The implementation was completed in-house.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment.

What other advice do I have?

I give the solution a nine out of ten. Zerto is a great solution that does exactly what it advertises and I definitely recommend it.

Zerto requires regular updates and maintenance. However, it is mostly a "set and forget" system, which is very convenient. This allows me to focus on other tasks.

Zerto has its own use cases, so we cannot replicate an entire site, but if we have to select certain products or applications that need to be replicated, such as a DR site, then it is an excellent solution to use. However, Zerto is not suitable for everyone and it would be difficult to do it on a large scale. For specific applications, it is great. I could not replicate my whole data center with Zerto, as it would be too complex. Nevertheless, Zerto is great for certain applications.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Hybrid Cloud
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Zerto Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.